Home

Saturday, February 27, 2016

A plain white sweater my girl discarded. I found it worth for my botanical prints but I've no idea what the materials are, the label with mention of 20%? 20%? and 40%? in Korean I don't understand. No harm for the trial with eucalyptus. Two species of eucalyptus are used. One is the euc cinerea and the other is smaller leaved which unknow to me. Both bought from florist. I placed the leaves on the pre-wetted sweater, rolled up and bundle boiled for 2 hours in dye pot with little onion skins soaked in alum.

After cooling, unwrapped. Bold prints of leaves and tie marks of onion skin color on the top. Not enough for me..... I wanted some more color on the plain sweater ........

Stitched to do the shibori dye on both sleeves and the bottom .......

I bought to boil two spoons of madder root in a litre of water with alum then soaked the stitched parts into the dye pot and covered the pot with heat switched off, kept overnight then opened.......

Wondering if Mogi likes it ?

Seems he doesn't fancy........ but I love the simple outcome !

That's what I intended shibori dye of madder red

Prints of eucalyptus are so bold and impressive on the surface. I figured that the sweater should have the most, 40% wool.

My daughter's discarded sweater is now my renewed one.

Plain with a bit color from nature.

If you like to do eco prints, natural prints, natural dyes, botanical imprints......... whatever you call this kind of natural color, my instant download tutorial is available on my on line shop ETSY.

Friday, February 19, 2016

For the last two days I have a student from Shanghai for the wool felt tutelage. I taught her the making of a nuno felt girl dress with a pair of baby booties.
這兩天一位上海來的學生 Silky 跟我學習製作羊毛工藝, 利用我自行印染的絲料做了混纖小女孩裙子與鞋子, 很柔和可愛的色調. 製作完裙子, 她仍很熱誠的學做立體羊毛器皿及植物染絲巾, 兩天時間很輕鬆愉悅的 Silky 學曉這些羊毛奇妙的技巧, 她說因為我的耐心教導, 她會繼續鑽研, 我也很高興有更多人喜愛羊毛工藝的獨特可塑性.

Also making a 3D wool felt vessel and a natural dyed silk scarf.

Before the whole day tutelage, I showed my student the samples of the nuno felt dresses and all the materials incl. my own natural dyed fabrics.

My student "Silky" from Shanghai took her time while stopping over Hong Kong for her overseas travel. She learnt once from my workshop last year in Shanhgai art centre. This time she wanted to make a new project - the nuno felt dress.

The pink chiffon I dyed with cochinael is for the textural surface and with some mulburry silk for the shining effect.

Mogi is always a welcome host in home studio

After the wool layering and the necessary rubbing, rolling and shaping....... the dress is made.

I taught Silky the making of a pair of baby booties with my onion dyed silk scraps and mulburry silk for textural surface. It's done with one enclosed resist for a pair.

The nuno felt girl dress and the baby booties making are the basic skills I taught Silky. In a few hours the set was made.

When Silky returned to hotel she wanted to make use of her stay to learn some more techniques of wool felting the next day. She really loves wool felting so much now. She let me decided whatever to teach.

I showed her my 3D vessels made with some raw fleece and she decided to make one.

Before starting the vessel making we made use the time of boiling a bundle of natural prints with onion skins.

While the bundle was boiling we started the vessel wool layering with enclosed resist.

The body is of Austrian mountain sheep wool which is perfect for the sturdy object making. Surface with assorted raw fleece. Some Romney, Wenslaydale, Teeswater etc. They're pretty curly look.

After rubbing and hundreds of rolling.....

rubbing with washboard.......

hitting with wood rod........

It's finished, sturdy but with soft raw fleece textures.

Dcorated with the banyan air roots around the mouth

The two days Silky made the adorable set of girl dress with bootie and a 3D woolly vessel with a pastel soft silk scarf.

I love my students, I like one-on-one tutelage as it's more relaxing. Thank you for coming Silky. Glad that you found wool felting amazing and you're hooked !

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

A piece of the eco printed silk fabric done in the historic freezing weekend in our subtropical Hong Kong. My facebook friends asked what were our historic cold days. I said it's -3 in mountain top in 59 years. Yes it's bitterly for me and for some plants.

Years ago when the French master Michel Garcia was performing a project in Hong Kong, I was one of the guests invited to join and learn from him. He made the indigo vat from the local strobilantes (last blog). The farm owner was so kind to give me a small plant to grow. Because of the severe cold weather these days some of the strobilantes on the slope died but the one in my yard was embracing the freezing days even blooming.

Can't resist to do an experiment again. I tried the leaves for contact prints before ( last blog ). It works well on silk. So with other plants - the iron mordant casaurina, limonium, eucalyptus and mandarin leaves I made the simple placement

A little limonium, casaurina and the leaves

After 1.5 hours bundle boiling, some overlapped purple and the main leaves direct on the fabric are darker that makes the shades while red is from eucalyptus.

The overlapped purple prints are just like the flowers colour. The following images speak themselves.......

The bigger one is strobilantes and the smaller green ones are mandarin leaves

The overlapped purple prints and iron mordant limonium

I'm happy with the prints so does Mogi !

The fabric may be as a scarf or sewed into a dress, fingers crossed. Anyway it's an experiment.
Instant download Tutorial for the ecoprinting is available in my ETSY
Linking party with Creative Princess